Darting on verge of milestone win despite lengthy layoff

Highland Park coach needs one win to reach 500

Coach Ken Darting of Highland Park is on the brink of a major coaching milestone entering the Scots' game Friday against Topeka West. Darting is just one win away from 500 victories as a high school/junior college head coach.

Highland Park basketball coach Ken Darting is on the brink of a major coaching milestone entering the Scots’ 7:45 p.m. game Friday at home against Topeka West, with Darting just one win away from 500 victories as a high school/junior college head coach.

Darting, who has coached five high school state champions (four at Highland Park), has compiled a 499-222 career record as a head boys coach at Silver Lake, men’s and women’s coach Allen Community College and head boys coach at Highland Park.

While impressive, Darting’s win total could be much higher, perhaps 600 or more, if he hadn’t taken a six-year hiatus from coaching between stints at Allen CC and Highland Park so he could attend son Kerry and daughter Krista’s school activities.

That’s a decision that Darting has never regretted.

“When I left Allen County the first note I got was from (then-Kansas coach) Roy Williams, and he congratulated me on that decision,” Darting said. “In that note he told me that if they hadn’t been upset in the Big Eight Tournament, he would have missed his son’s state championship game for Lawrence High. And I don’t remember the number now because it’s been so long ago, but I think he told me that he saw (Scott) play like seven times.

“I can’t even imagine that. You can go back to about anything in life, but you can’t go back to raising a family.”

So Darting, who also went six years without being a head coach earlier in his career, stepped away from coaching to go to Kerry’s basketball and football games and to attend Krista’s softball games, forensic meets and theatre productions. He went all the way to Chicago and Oshkosh, Wis., for her forensic meets.

And whether the coaching layoff cost him 10 wins or 100 or more, Darting doesn’t care.

“I’ve never been a guy who thought about ‘What if,’ ” Darting said of the layoff. “I never ever got into that. I’m proud and I’m happy, and I like to win more than I like to lose, but it’s just never been a count with me, a record with me or can you better last year this year?

“You go into a game and you want to win every game and you know you’re not going to win every game, but you prepare to and you try to. And when it’s over, I’m not kicking the dog or cussing the wife when we lose, and I’d like to think I’m not too overblown when we win.”

Darting, who will step down at Highland Park at the end the season, is a maximum six games away from the end of an incredible run with the Scots.

His current team is 18-1 while he is 254-52 overall at the school with seven of his Highland Park teams advancing to state championship games.

A big question is whether Darting will add to his accomplishments at another school, and he said he’s not sure himself at this point.

“All of the things that I need for (jobs) to be, there aren’t a lot of those out there, so it might not happen,” Darting said. “But as I was in those six years while I was between coaching, I won’t be unhappy, I won’t be miserable.

“I’ll transform (my time) into golf or traveling to see former players play or watching games.”

If he does coach again, Darting said it won’t be all about wins.

“If I coach again, I might finish 5 and 500, but there will be something about it that is different than everything that I’ve done so far and makes you enjoy doing it,” he said. “It’s better than doing anything else I’ve found to do in life.”